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Thank You For A Wonderful 2nd Year
Open Letter to the Community From Texas
PCC
Date: March 24, 2010
Hi Everyone,
I wanted to first wish everyone a very happy Norooz. I wish for a
very healthy year for all of you.
Texas PCC is now 2 years old and we are now into our 3rd year of
operation. I wanted to thank everyone for all the kind words,
encouragements and support that you have provided. I cannot believe
that we are now starting our 3rd year of existence as a cultural
center. Thank you to those of you who have supported us through the
years and have encouraged us to continue our work.
A very heartfelt thank you goes to our volunteers and teachers as
well as the volunteers' families who share their loved ones' time
with us. Without you, we could not have made it this far. You have
shown clearly that contrary to the popular belief, our community in
this city CAN and WILL come together and organize a center that
symbolizes and celebrates our proud heritage. You have shown that
instead of sowing seeds of doubt, gossip and negativity, we CAN sow
seeds of integrity, sincerity, respect and compassion. I sincerely
believe that a vast majority of our community members not only
posses these great human qualities, they also significantly enrich
quality of life for others in the community. What I find interesting
is that this great majority usually works in a vacuum and on
individual basis, because they either do not trust or do not know
organizations that actually DO good work and ARE just like them,
sincere and compassionate. Our members and volunteers want to let
you all know that our doors are open to you if you want to join
forces and if you respect our bylaws/organizational constitution to
make a better community.
If you look at last year’s accomplishments, you will soon realize that a
center like ours is a necessity for a healthy and functioning
community. Last year, with your help & support, we were able to help
the Iranian refugees with basic necessities; Iranian children with
Persian language and arts & crafts classes; a number of patients
with free doctor consultation and prescription medication; American
and Iranian-Americans with Persian language instruction; the Iranian
women with the establishment of the Iranian Women’s Society, the
elderly with a place to get together and enjoy each other’s company;
the adults with basic computer classes; the artists and musicians
with gallery and venue for displaying, performing or selling their
art; the Persian literature and poetry enthusiasts with various
events; the entire community with several seminars by healthcare
professionals; the film enthusiasts with several film and
documentary viewing; the authors with a venue to launch, talk about
or sell their books; the college students with a venue to meet, have
discussions, dance, eat dinners or just have fun mingling; the
filmmaking students with a venue to use for their class projects;
American high school students with a place to visit to learn about
Iran and her history; the entire community with celebration of
events such as Norooz, Sadeh, Mehregan, Yalda, Halloween, New years
eve and numerous other events. This level of commitment does not
come easy and every single person helping and supporting us in these
events should be very proud of their tireless efforts. You know who
you are, and we thank you for your efforts and support.
A few more items I'd like to share with you as we start our 3rd year
of operation:
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Our email membership
has now exceeded 1100 members, but I know we have many more Iranians
in this town who have not heard of our center and would enjoy being
part of our community family. If you have local people with
emails/or email lists, please forward them to me or forward this
email to them so they can join through our website.
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I am happy to say that
in 2009, with the exception of one month (October), we were able to
make our financial commitments such as rent, electricity, phone,
internet, water, garbage, etc… on time, every month with a few
dollars to spare at the end of the month. In October we were short
about $800 which we were able to put together by help from generous donors. Our expenses are not huge (about $3300 per month)
compare to the services we provide to the community. We draw no
salaries and our teachers volunteer their time. We want to get to a
point where we can compensate our teachers at minimum for the time
they put in for our children’s education. A few of you are helping
us with monthly credit card donations
(from $1.00 per month to $100
per month) which helps us tremendously because we know we have a
guaranteed few hundred dollars every month.) – the remainder of our
expenses are generally covered by class tuitions, ticket sales to
events and cash/check donations made to our donation box. We can
really use a few more regular credit card donations. Even $10-$20 a
month will make a huge difference if the number of donors is
increased. As you know, we have been awarded a Tax Exempt Status
by the U.S. Department of Treasury's Internal Revenue Service under
section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. All donations to
TexasPCC are tax deductible . Everyone who donated to the
cultural center in 2009, should have received their year-end
receipts by now. If you have not, you have either not provided us
with a valid address or somehow failed to give us an address at all.
Please let me know if you need a year-end receipt for your donation.
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I want to ask you to
support our advertisers so they continue to help us with purchasing
ads. We have made changes to our website so the position of the ads
change every time a new page is loaded so all advertisers have the
same chance of having their ads displayed on the top rows. If you
want to advertise with us, please contact me.
Again, thank you all for the wonderful 2 years and we are looking
forward to meeting more of you as we start our 3rd year of
operation. Please let us know what we do right and what we can
improve upon. If you have ideas, we would love to hear them. If you
want to join our team, please let us know. Remember, this center
belongs to our community and only YOU can make it better and more
functional.
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